Are you ready for the new, COVID-forced, online learning paradigm? This competency-based, skill-building course will help non-U.S. students, first-generation immigrants, and foreign-born professionals better understand and master American online learning, as well as other U.S. virtual environments, for college and career success. In the post-COVID era, the course can also be very instrumental in assisting U.S.-based institutions in organizing remote learning activities for their current or prospective international students.
The current pandemic has disrupted the world of higher education and work as we know it. Many thousands of international students and professionals can no longer travel internationally at will and must now learn how to effectively study and work remotely. To excel in American online learning and work environments, international students and foreign-born professionals need to know how American universities and companies use the Internet to organize study and work, develop and execute projects, communicate ideas, collaborate, and solve organizational and technical problems. By taking this course, you will learn how to enhance your cultural knowledge and assess potential skill gaps that may hinder your online experience or negatively impact your performance in U.S. virtual learning and work environments. Throughout the course you will systematically review competencies required for online work, come to better understand common barriers for non-native students and professionals, learn how to detect and overcome competency gaps, and develop plans for self-improvement and success. We believe that you will find the course useful and gain new knowledge and skills to become more successful in your remote study/work in the U.S.
The course was previously offered as iMOOC101 and iMOOC102 "Mastering American e-Learning". We have updated it to reflect the new realities of the Post (well, not yet!)-COVID era. We will be glad if you could share your own experiences in navigating the new world of remote teaching, learning, and work.

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International learners in U.S. online education

In this introductory module, we explain why many international online learners and foreign-born professionals experience problems in American e-learning environments and how they can use a competency-based approach to overcome barriers and become fully proficient for college and career success. Your instructors for this week are Dr. Valeri Chukhlomin, Dr. Dana Gliserman-Kopans, Dr. Michele Forte, and Amy Giaculli. Guest lecturers are Prof. Xenia Coulter and Lorette Pellettiere Calix.

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Dr. Valeri Chukhlomin

Amy Giaculli

Dr. Bidhan Chandra

Dr. Dana Gliserman-Kopans

Dr. Anant Deshpande

Текст видео

>> Today I'm going to talk a little bit about what has influenced the development of an American style of education. We can start by noting that most people would agree that higher education in the United States is somewhat different from what you might experience in other countries. Some of that difference comes from the very beginnings of our history, when our founders, in particular, Thomas Jefferson, argued that a democracy with a government not only for the people but by the people, required that all people be well educated. But the kind of differences you see in our colleges today can be largely attributed to one person from our more recent history. That person, probably the most renowned philosopher in America is John Dewey. Born in 1859, Dewey lived for more than 90 years and was a prolific writer with more than 700 different written works to his name. Here we have a photo of him early in his scholarly career in 1884. And here's a photo some 60 years later years a few years before his death in 1952. Besides the usual philosophical topics, Dewey wrote a lot about the purposes and meaning of education He was interested in the subject of education for several reasons. He began his scholarly life as a high school teacher. He was also the father of six children and, as any parent, was deeply interested in their school experience. He was very concerned about the role of school in a democracy. And as a philosopher, he thought deeply about the nature of knowledge. But as a psychologist and a scientist, he also wanted to better understand the way humans acquire that knowledge. So, what are some of the ideas that Dewey entertained in his long involvement with education? As a high school teacher he was deeply disturbed by the way young people learned to hate the very subjects that were important for them to know. The trouble wasn't the subject matter, but the way it was taught. Forcing students to sit in rows of desks, not being able to talk together. And then requiring them to recite aloud the contents of books by memory over and over again, was not only ineffective but made the process of learning very unpleasant. As a parent he saw his children at home easily and happily learning new things almost every hour of the day. A dramatic contrast to what he saw happening in school. His observations led him to believe that learning is a natural process when its purpose is linked to the learner's own interests and needs. He then recognized that one major problem with most educational institutions is that they are overly concerned with delivering knowledge. Instead, he argues school should focus on stimulating natural born human curiosity. Then the situation should be so arranged that the students, in order to satisfy that curiosity, will want to seek out and discover on their own volition and for their own purposes that knowledge that would otherwise have just been told to them. Dewey also lived in a period of great change, a time that began with steam engines and ended up with atomic bombs. A period that saw horse-drawn carriages replaced by automobiles, supplemented with jet planes. He saw knowledge accumulate at an ever increasing rate. From a practical point of view, he understood that it was no longer even possible for schools to cover all that is important to know. So instead of trying to stuff as much prior knowledge into student heads, students needed to be encouraged to discover for themselves the information they needed to know and how to critically evaluate what they uncovered. Dewey was in fact a great proponent of the scientific method as a powerful way of finding answers and solving problems. Dewey also understood that despite all that human beings have so far learned, there is still an infinite amount of knowledge yet to be acquired. Thus one of Dewey's most controversial positions was that as long as humans are in the process of developing, there is no absolute truth. Whatever we believe today is always subject to challenge and change by what we may learn tomorrow. So instead of seeing school as a place where one learns all the right answers, he argued that students needed to be taught how to ask the right questions, how to search for possible answers, and how to use their minds to assess their validity. In the end, he argued that democracy would be far better served if students were able to follow their own interest in whatever direction it might take them. As long as they also learn in school how to act upon their own curiosity and to seek out and critically evaluate important information for themselves. Of the many books written by Dewey, the following three are of particular relevance to the field of education. The first one, How We Think, published in 1908, is astonishingly applicable in today's world. It's fairly short and not that difficult to read and understand. If there was any book by Dewey I might recommend for the average undergraduate, this would be it. Number two, Democracy and Education published in 1916 is Dewey's most famous and complete argument about how students should be taught. Almost every chapter contains information of interest today. But as a whole, the rather long book is best suited for a serious student in the field of education. Number three, Experience and Education, published in 1938, was a very short summary of Dewey's ideas about education. He wrote this book while reflecting back upon what had been gleaned during the first 30 years of the 20th century about the nature of student learning. Students who might want to learn more about Dewey's philosophical ideas in general, one of the best, but short and very well written books that I would recommend is John Dewey Rethinking Our Time by Raymond D Boisvert. It was published by the Suny Press in 1998. In the next video I'll talk about the experience of higher education today in the United States. I'll describe the various characteristics that make up the American character. And then I'll show how those characteristics reflect the ideas of John Dewey.